


Family

by Heliosthetroll



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:49:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21790324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliosthetroll/pseuds/Heliosthetroll
Summary: A look both into the past and present of Thomas's life and some things behind the scenes with the sides and just how their dynamics have formed, changed, and grown over the years.
Kudos: 11





	Family

It all started when Creativity took two forms rather than one. Before then everything had been whole and happy. Morality, Logic, Creativity, Anxiety, even Deceit all lived together happily as one group. They were young as was Thomas but they all were family and they were all there for each other no matter what. Even more than they were family they were friends and they enjoyed spending time together doing and talking about various things. Logic and Deceit debated on how Santa got down the chimney, Creativity and Anxiety talked about their favorite characters from the Disney movie they’d just seen, Morality and Logic planned out the day together, Creativity and Deceit told stories to each other, Morality and Anxiety played board games together and chatted about Thomas’s friends. Everyone was together and everyone was happy. But that didn’t last forever.  
It wasn’t a sudden change though it might seem that way at first. It had been building for a while as Thomas learned right from wrong and all his sides absorbed what he learned into themselves. The breaking point came however when the strain on Creativity became too much to handle and one became two.

He’d been in the common space at the time, Logic and Morality nearby but not talking, everyone just peacefully doing their own things. Creativity had been thinking about things silently while staring at the wall when the thought came to him, not for the first time, that maybe he was bad for some of the darker sides of himself. They were pretty tame at the time compared to how they’d be when Thomas was older, after all Thomas was still a child, but they were still considered bad by everything he seemed to see and everyone he seemed to talk to. The thought stuck around for longer than before this time and he mulled over it rather than brushing it aside with reminders that he was Creativity, he was important and needed and couldn’t be bad. As the thought danced in his head it seemed to affect him more and more. His mood dropped and he began to worry. If he was bad did that mean Thomas was bad? Was he making Thomas bad? Was he hurting Thomas? What about the other sides? Was he hurting them? Slowly he started to get what felt like a really bad migraine. It crept up on him and got worse and worse as time went on and the thoughts continued to swirl. He shut his eyes against the pain eventually but then a few moments later the pain was gone. But something was… Different. He didn’t feel like the same person he’d been minutes before. He opened his eyes again and saw that he wasn’t the same person he’d been moments before.

He was ‘good’ Creativity and there beside him on the couch was a twin boy who was both Intrusive Thoughts and ‘bad’ Creativity.

Of course, the sudden occurrence had drawn the attention of both Morality and Logic and they were staring wide-eyed at the two new sides as they blinked and tried to figure out what had happened to them and who they were now. Morality was the first to speak, introducing himself and Logic to the two. The two new halves of Creativity turned to Morality and the one on the right spoke next, saying he was Creativity and that he already knew who they were. The other gave his twin a confused look and said he was Creativity but had no idea who Morality and Logic were. Logan seemed to understand then and explained that Creativity seemed to have split in two, one half retaining memories of their past and the other not retaining those memories. Further conversation allowed the two personalities of the halves to become more clear and at the same time proved Logic’s theory. Creativity was now two people. A ‘good’ and a ‘bad’ side, though no one really called it that at first. This moment was the catalyst but not everything happened at once.

In order to make things simpler for identifying and differentiating between the two new halves, they were given nicknames. The Prince and the Duke. They were later introduced to Anxiety and Deceit who found themselves drifting more towards Duke than Prince, opposite to the leanings of Morality and Logic. But they were still one happy family. For now.

But Thomas’s mind was set a bit off balance by this change and the beginning of puberty not long after didn’t help things. The sides drifted apart slowly as appearances and personalities changed. Even the brothers, who at first were still as close as though they were one, drifted apart from each other and started to fight more and more. Morality seemed to be taking the upset in the mind the hardest to start with. He was trying his best to be open and empathetic and kind but fighting was happening more and more as things got harder and harder. Logic was becoming more strict with how Thomas should live and what he should do, Prince’s dreams became bigger and ‘better’, Duke’s fantasies got darker and more ‘wrong’, Anxiety got more intense with his fears and the number of fears he had grew, and Deceit found more and bigger reasons to lie and trick people for Thomas’s benefit at the cost of others. It all was weighing on Morality more and more and he was finding it hard to manage it all. He thought maybe it would be easier if he didn’t have to handle all of it. If maybe some things just got, tucked away. Secrets were Deceit’s thing. So he went to him first.

He told him of his stresses and relayed to him his idea. Deceit could take Duke and Anxiety and tuck away somewhere while he Prince and Logic handled things with Thomas. Just until things were easier he promised. Everything would be easier when they were older. It had to be. Deceit did not believe that and he was offended that Patton suggested they disappear as if they weren’t important. He accused Morality of favoritism and of trying to get rid of them because he didn’t like them. Morality tried to deny this but the damage was done. Deceit was upset and he left Morality there guilty and alone.

But fine Deceit decided. He wanted them gone? Then they’d go. So he gathered up the two he was closest with out of the family and told them they were going to be getting a new space, just for the three of them. Anxiety was, of course, nervous and wanted to know what was going on and why they were leaving but Deceit assured him through honey-sweet lies that everything was ok. They’d still be a part of Thomas’s life and they’d still be a family with the rest of the sides. They’d just live somewhere else. Duke was excited and ready for this new space to explore, thinking about how he could rekindle the dying bond with his brother by going on adventures through it with him. So Deceit worked together with the other two and they created a dark cranny in Thomas’s mind suited to their tastes and went there to live.

It didn’t take long for Logic and Prince to notice that the group was gone and of course, they went to ask Morality why’d they’d left. Morality smiled and said everything was fine. That the others just found their place a bit too bright and wanted their own home. Logic and Creativity took this as fact, having never known the fluffy boy to lie, and were a bit upset with the half of their family leaving but thought it was for the best because it was for their happiness. But the separation only grew the crack forming between the group.

Tensions grew from there. The twins fought more and more, Deceit and Morality no longer spoke to each other besides to keep up appearances around the others, Anxiety’s fears caused conflict with Prince’s dreams and what Logic knew to be fact. Slowly they broke apart more and more until... The two halves split apart completely, resentment too firm for them to easily get past. And the dark sides and light sides were truly not a family any longer.

Later Thomas would grow up more and learn to summon the sides and interact with them more. The subconscious would then grant them names which they would keep hidden until they felt the time was right. At first, the only sides Thomas interacted with were Prince, who retook the name Creativity for himself and himself alone, Morality, and Logic. Not long after though Anxiety would find himself bitter about the other’s getting to physically interact with Thomas and would butt in on situations uninvited, making himself known to Thomas more concretely even if his existence had been noticeable from the start.

Little did any of them know that through these interactions with Thomas and the three light sides that the rift between the families would grow a temporary bridge allowing Anxiety to cross. Though that bridge was not built instantly by a long shot. It took a while, with everyone else making steps towards bonding with Thomas and even revealing their names to him and the others. Morality became Patton, Logic was Logan, and Creativity became Roman. Even then it would be a while before Anxiety would bond with the others again, see that he’d missed them in all the years they’d spent apart and want to be with them again.

It did help that there was conflict in the dark sides though. Anxiety was starting to grow to hate his housemates of sorts, Duke was much too wild and scary seeming for him and Deceit was becoming power hungry and risk-taking. They both were becoming things he feared and couldn’t help but think of as bad, especially Deceit who seemed to have much more control over himself and what he did than Duke did. So hatred slowly formed while love was formed between him and the light sides again.

Finally, Anxiety revealed his name to all of them, Virgil, and not long after with a change of outfit he became a light side. He separated from his family and was adopted by Patton, Logan, and Roman. Deceit was heartbroken by this and felt deeply betrayed and rejected by Virgil for this action. He became bitter and angry and decided he and Duke would hide no longer. They were going to make themselves known again and they were going to show Thomas not only who he was but who those light sides truly were and so he began to plan. It wasn’t long after that plan was finished that set it in motion and disguised himself as Patton and made his first appearance to Thomas.

Neither that nor his later attempt were as successful as he’d hoped they’d be though so he took more drastic measures. They clearly weren’t going to believe a known liar who could be pushed aside. So maybe they’d believe the side who was too erratic to ignore and too crazy to be dishonest. He sent Duke to do what he couldn’t manage himself and Duke ended up revealing his name, Remus, and doing more than Deceit had really intended. But he was surprised to find most of all that despite this things actually ended up better than he’d really expected. Remus for one came back happier than ever and when he told of the experience he enthused about how Logan had, in a way, defended him and how the others had not forcefully shoved him away but rather just come to accept that he existed and was who he was and there was nothing they could do about it. It wasn’t perfect, they’d still fought against Remus rather than with him after all, but it was much more progress than Deceit had expected. Remus even relayed that Virgil had almost seemed to kinda miss hanging out with him in the end even if it was deeply buried down and hidden. Deceit was shocked but thrilled and he and Remus ended up celebrating that little victory for a while no matter how tiny it was.

And really they’d done more than they’d even known seeing as once it was just Virgil and Thomas alone Virgil had revealed some of his deeper feelings to Thomas and shared something he was no longer proud of from his past. That he had once been a dark side. There hadn’t been much discussion on it but it was out there now for Thomas to think about and well. Even if it wasn’t on the forefront of his mind all the time and even if Virgil still continued to hang out with the other light sides without conflict on Thomas’s part Thomas certainly did spend a good amount of time thinking about the fact that one of the most cherished light sides had once been like the two damaging dark sides that had recently appeared.

The walls were beginning to get chipped down, the crack slowly melding, and the process was slow but it was happening. And who knew. Maybe one day they’d all get to be a family again.


End file.
